The Pittsburgh Press (March 1, 1944)
Onslaught subsides after day and night of heavy fighting
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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Yanks rapidly extending beachheads on Los Negros, in Admiralty group west of New Britain
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Compromise reached once, but debate goes on
Washington (UP) –
Senate and House soldier-vote conferees – who yesterday voted 9–1 for a compromise federal war ballot plan – ran into another snag today.
Today’s meeting was to have been merely a routine windup to straighten out technical language of the compromise bill before issuing a conference report to the two chambers. But the morning session ended in what appeared to be merely an extension of the argument which has kept the conference deadlocked for nearly three weeks. The conferees agreed to meet again this afternoon.
Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM) told reporters the House conferees are now balking on extending the restricted federal ballot to service personnel within this country as well as overseas. Yesterday’s agreement provided that the federal ballot should be given all men who certify that they have applied for, but by Oct. 1 had not received, a state absentee ballot.
Senate conferees understood this was acceptable to the House, and regarded the 9–1 vote as binding.
He said:
We don’t know where we are. The Senate thought yesterday that everything was settled, but now it apparently isn’t.
Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), leading opponent of any federal ballot plan, had declared he would fight vigorously to defeat the once-approved compromise.
Democrats squeezes by with ALP and CIO aid
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
New York City’s Tammany-controlled 21st Congressional district remains Democratic today after a presidential year byelection that cut machine majorities from a fat two-to-one to a skimpy fraction.
Republicans claimed everything from a moral victory to evidence that the country will “repudiate the Democratic leadership next November.” They estimated a 12% GOP gain in the byelection.
With the help of ALP
Democrats could point out that their men won. Yesterday’s returns had been awaited for indications of New York State political trends. The aggregate vote was light. By percentages, the trend definitely and substantially was against the Democrats.
James H. Torrens, Democrat and American Labor Party candidate, polled 11,707 votes to 10,136 for Republican William S. Bennet. Democrats suffered some intraparty differences, but both the Wendell L. Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey factions of the Republican Party backed the GOP candidate. Of Torrens’ aggregate. 3,226 votes were from the American Labor Party. His majority was 1,571.
What interested politicians here was a comparison of Mr. Torrens’ margin yesterday with the votes by which Democrats have won in the past three elections. Here are the figures:
| Democratic | Republican | Majority | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 | 84,000 | 36,000 | 48,000 |
| 1940 | 108,000 | 46,000 | 62,000 |
| 1942 | 60,000 | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Campaigning on a pro-Roosevelt platform and to win-the-war, Mr. Torrens charged Mr. Bennet’s election would send to Congress an opponent of the administration. Mr. Bennet also campaigned for win-the-war and bore down heavily on tax simplification.
A normal vote
The small number of votes case was normal for such a byelection but it seemed to support the American Labor Party contention that it holds a balance of power in New York City. Furthermore, some political observers believe that the sharp reduction in the ratio of Democratic victory is an indication that President Roosevelt’s hold on his home state has been broken where it was strongest.
The vacancy was created by resignation of Democrat James A. Gavagan. The 21st is an Upper Manhattan district going deep into Harlem and about 35% of its voters are Negroes. It is an area in which a Democratic supporter of Mr. Roosevelt should be as safe as any statesman seeking office could expect to be anywhere.
Had left-wing backing
Metropolitan papers except the liberal and left-wing press uniformly supported the Republican candidate.
The Daily Worker, New York organ of the Communist Party, has been conducting front-page editorial campaign for Mr. Torrens, warning its readers that “it would be a fatal mistake for labor and other supporters for FDR to take this byelection casually or to be at all overconfident because the district happens to be Democratic.
The Worker also emphasized the opportunity for the American Labor Party to roll up a comparatively large vote for Mr. Torrens to “give it added weight in the political councils of the state and greater prestige among the people.”
The returns show that the ALP did very well.
Mr. Torrens was further aided by support of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Council. The Republican candidate, however, had support of the Central Trades and Labor Council.
Democratic House membership will total 217 when Mr. Torrens takes the oath. It would have totaled 218 except for the death last night of Rep. Thomas H. Cullen, Democrat from New York’s 4th district.
Republicans now number 209; Progressives 2; Farmer-Labor 1; and ALP 1. There are five vacancies, four of them formerly held by Democrats in New York, Illinois, Colorado and Oklahoma.
The fifth vacancy, in Illinois, was held by a Republican.
GOP expects gains
Republicans confidently expect byelection gains in Oklahoma and Colorado and to retain the Republican seat in Illinois. The other Illinois vacancy was created this month by death of Repo. Leonard W. Schuetz, a Democrat from the 7th Congressional district in Cook County, the political domain of Mayor Edward J. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly has a powerful machine, but Mr. Schuetz won last time by only 1,975 votes out of 357,837 cast.
Mr. Cullen’s death gave the Republicans another opening to fight for an additional seat. He polled 21,456 votes to 10,070 for his Republican opponent in the 1942 elections.
New Orleans, Louisiana (UP) –
James H. “Jimmie” Davis, jukebox song composer and actor in Western movies, piled up a commanding lead and appears assured of the Democratic nomination for Governor of Louisiana today, after one of the most bitter campaigns in the political history of this one-time kingdom of the late Huey P. Long.
Mr. Davis of Shreveport held more than a 27,000-vote lead over his opponent, Lewis L. Morgan of Covington, in a runoff primary. Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.
With 1,639 of the state’s 1,864 precincts reporting, the unofficial vote was:
| Davis | 204,940 |
| Morgan | 175,292 |
Not only was Mr. Davis apparently headed towards the Governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge, but he was also handling the old regular machine bossed by New Orleans Mayor Robert Maestri the worst beating in its recent history.
Fred Leblanc, mayor of Baton Rouge, running on the Davis ticket for state’s attorney general, was leading State Senator Joe T. Cawthorn of Mansfield. J. Emile Verret, running mate for Lieutenant Governor, held a lead of almost 20,000 votes in his race against former Governor Earl K. Long, brother of the late “Kingfish.”
Only sugar, butter, tea, coffee, preserves and evaporated milk now rationed
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Miss Alpern argues cities’ case before highest U.S. tribunal
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Supreme Court to be called upon to settle question of how far executive may be quizzed
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey said last night that the peace which follows this war “must not be a rigid, inflexible thing,” but must “provide peoples everywhere with simple, understandable means of bringing an end to the horror of war.”
Mr. Dewey, speaking before 18,000 persons at a Red Cross rally opening the New York City drive for funds said the peace “must not be the dictated result of personal conferences.”
He said:
It must be the constant, daily beneficiary of the labors of men of goodwill, striving to make it work and sacrificing to make it endure. Most of all, it must be based on a growing sense of fellowship between peoples.
But father of imbecile son says he couldn’t slay ‘my own baby’
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Jap guns silenced as Americans stream ashore on another stepping stone to Tokyo
By William B. Dickinson
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